By Colleen O’Sullivan
… Saul answered
David, “You cannot go up against this Philistine and fight with him, for you
are only a youth, while he has been a warrior from his youth.” David continued: “The Lord, who delivered me from the claws of
the lion and the bear, will also keep me safe from the clutches of this
Philistine.” Saul answered David,
“Go! The Lord will be with you.” (1 Samuel
17:33-37)
(Jesus) said to
the man with the withered hand, “Come up here before us.” Then he said to the Pharisees, “Is it lawful
to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to
destroy it?” But they remained
silent. Looking around at them with
anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, Jesus said to the man, “Stretch
out your hand.” (Mark 3:3-5)
Piety
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, on your own intelligence do not
rely;
In all your ways be mindful of him, and he will make straight your
paths.
(Proverbs
3:5-6)
Study
In first
grade, it was those big, tall third graders down the hall and on the
playground. Years later, it was going
away to school in another part of the country.
Then, before I knew it, school days were over and I was an adult, out in
the world, on my own, becoming a pastor of a church for the first time. Fast forward a little over a decade and it
was figuring out how to leave my church members and come back to the Catholic
Church. As I’ve grown older, there’ve
been losses of beloved friends and family members. Only a few years down the
pike, retirement is looming.
There are
many Goliaths in every one of our lives, hurdles that loom large on our horizons,
anxiety-producing specters. When I look
back, I realize I’ve survived all these hurdles that seemed so insurmountable
at the time, some better than others.
And the truth is, the ones I came out better on were the things I
entrusted to God. David was right to put
his confidence in the God who had already saved him from many dangers. That trust in the Lord was what enabled the
young man to go out and face the Philistine’s infamous giant.
When we
read the psalms attributed to David, it’s fairly obvious that God wasn’t someone
he merely believed in. God was someone with
whom he had an intimate relationship, so much so that he felt free not only to
praise his Creator, but to pour out his despair and even anger at times. That’s the type of relationship Jesus would
like to have with each of us, one so close that we are able to share all the
details of our lives with him – the good, the bad and the ugly. We see in today’s Gospel reading how
compassionate and caring our Savior is.
He is ready to heal our ills, to stand by us as we confront the Goliaths
in our lives. He is there waiting for us
every moment of every day, seven days a week.
Action
Going through life with a pull-up-your socks,
go-it-alone attitude is unnecessarily difficult. It’s no way to live and it doesn’t help us
face down the inevitable Goliaths along life’s way. Jesus desires to be our friend and
stronghold. A wonderful book I can
recommend on this subject is A Friendship
Like No Other by William A. Barry, S.J.
Today is the March for Life in Washington, DC. Pray for the safety and well-being of all
those gathered from across the nation in these frigid temperatures.
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